Xinhua News Agency

ARTICLES ABOUT XINHUA NEWS AGENCY BY DATE - PAGE 2

China plans to boost anti-terrorism training for its military ahead of this summer's Olympic Games. The troops will focus on biochemical and nuclear threats, as well as emergency rescue operations, the official Xinhua News Agency said Monday. China believes terrorism is the biggest threat facing the Olympic Games and has called for closer international cooperation to prevent possible attacks. While not a traditional target of international terrorism, Beijing faces a growing long-term threat from Islamic separatists in western China's Xinjiang region.

China will conduct its first national survey of pollution sources in February to help control environmental deterioration in a country with some of the world's most tainted cities, state media said Friday. The study will identify and collect data on sources of industrial, agricultural and residential pollution for two months, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing the head of the State Environmental Protection Administration. Xinhua did not elaborate on details of the study.

A storm drenched China's southeast Sunday after killing five people in Taiwan and prompting the evacuation of 1.4 million people on the mainland, officials said. Krosa came ashore as a typhoon near China's port city of Wenzhou but weakened and was soon downgraded to a tropical storm, the official Xinhua News Agency said. No deaths or injuries were reported.

A nightclub fire in southeastern China killed 12 people and left six others injured, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday. Authorities were investigating the cause of the blaze at the Bense Jingying club in Fuzhou City, Xinhua said. It said the injured six were hospitalized in stable condition.

China's Agriculture Ministry said it has intensified efforts to stop an outbreak of a deadly pig disease that has spread through much of the nation, sending prices of the food staple to new heights. Blue ear disease, also known as porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, has infected 280,000 pigs since the start of the year, killing more than 70,000, chief veterinary officer Jia Youling was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency.

A blast ripped through a karaoke parlor and bath house in northeast China, killing 25 people and injuring 33 others, state media reported Thursday. Xinhua News Agency said the cause of the Wednesday night blast in Tianshifu township in Liaoning province was being investigated. Several employees and the wife of the parlor owner, who was killed, were being questioned, it said, without saying if they were suspects. Xinhua initially put the death toll at five but said 25 bodies were found when rescuers had finished clearing away debris from the blast.

China plans to build a highway on the side of Mt. Everest to ease the Olympic torch's journey to the peak of the world's tallest mountain before the 2008 Beijing Games, state media reported Tuesday. Construction of the road, budgeted at $19.7 million, would turn a 67-mile rough path from the foot of the mountain to a base camp at 17,060 feet "into a blacktop highway fenced by undulating guardrails," the Xinhua News Agency said.

An earthquake in southwest China early Sunday left at least three people dead while injuring hundreds, destroying buildings and forcing the evacuation of 120,000 residents, state media reported. The 6.4-magnitude quake struck the county seat of Ning'er shortly after 5:30 a.m., said China's official Xinhua News Agency.

The first panda bred in captivity and released into the wild has died in China after less than a year -- the apparent victim of a fall. Chinese officials said the body bore injuries inflicted by wild pandas, and the animal may have died trying to escape. The body of the 5-year-old panda, Xiang Xiang, was found Feb. 19 in the forests of Sichuan province in China's southwest, the Xinhua News Agency said.

China's top family planning body has warned that the world's most populous country could face a "population rebound" because the newly rich are ignoring population control laws and because of early marriages in rural areas, state media said Monday. China's family planning policy -- implemented in the late 1970s -- limits most urban couples to one child and rural families to two to control population growth and conserve natural resources. But a rise in incomes means some newly rich can afford to break the rules and pay any resulting fines, while the traditional desire for sons means the rules also are broken in the countryside.